


Please, please, please

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Series: I Love You [9]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17462801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: Because every fandom needs a 'one of them falls off a cliff/over a railing' fic :)-----“I love you.” He shouts it up to her and it seems to echo along the metal bars and bounce off the walls.“Shut up!” Robin shouts back, feeling more of his wool coat slip through her grasp. She screams for Shanker again and prays to god that someone will hear her.“What, you don’t love me?” He says it with a smirk but he’s doing a terrible job of hiding the fear in his eyes and a sob catches in Robin’s throat.





	Please, please, please

 

Robin knows that he’ll fall, whether or not she still has a hold of his bunched up sleeves when the time comes he’ll fall the second his arms give out. Her hands have already slipped from near his elbows to halfway down his forearms. She can’t take his weight, she knows this, and the voice in her head is too loud to drown out. _He’s going to fall. Help won’t come quick enough. He’s already slipping._

 

His sweat-slicked hands are white at the knuckles and red everywhere else as they cling on to the thin metal poles of the railing that separates them. Robin’s arms are pushed through them, stretched as far as they can to get as strong of a hold as she can. _A hold that’s not strong enough_ , the voice says. Her face is pressed against the cold metal and she imagines her child self pushing her head through. Instead she has to strain her eyes to look at him. Her view alternates between the top of his curly head when he looks down and his eyes when he looks back up at her, both wide and suddenly childlike in their fear.

 

Robin doesn’t look at anything except him. Not the stairs either side of him, both too far to jump to, or the 20 floor drop directly below him. As if she can will him to be alright with her love alone.

 

She knows he’s slipping but she can’t tell how fast, whether it will be seconds or minutes. There’s a rush of static electricity rushing up and down her body, stomach to throat, as she imagines how quickly it could happen. She saw him go over and since then time has lost all meaning. They were traipsing through a block of council flats with Shanker looking for a friend of his who had turned out to be one of their witnesses. Shanker was a few floors below them and Robin was at the far end of the corridor from Strike when the quiet night air was interrupted by the loud bang of a door and a grunt. She turned to see a man come barreling out of the flat and right into Strike and in a tussle of arms and legs Strike went over the railings with barely a sound before the man ran down the stairs.

 

For a second the world seemed to freeze for Robin. The quiet of the building seemed to intensify. _No_ , she thought, the single word repeating itself over and over at a hastening speed. She felt her chest heave and a rawness enter her throat but then just as suddenly as Strike had disappeared Robin heard her name being called and saw fingers scrambling for purchase on the bars. She ran with legs that felt like jelly and collapsed to the ground, shoved her arms through the bars, grabbed a hold of him and hasn’t let go since.

 

The veins at his temple and across his forehead are bulging and his face has gone red from the strain of holding on. Robin can tell by the way he‘s hanging that he has hurt his shoulder, more of his weight seems to dangle to the left and he looks ready to bite through his bottom lip every time he moves his right arm to get a better hold.

 

“Shanker!” She screams at the top of her voice and curses the phone that’s in her jacket pocket, so close but out of reach and she can’t, won’t, let go of him.

 

“Cormoran.” Robin’s voice is shaky and she‘s on the verge of tears.

 

“Shouldn’t... had... those... mince pies.” He says through gritted teeth.

 

He can’t get any purchase on the bars, every time he tries to pull himself higher in a bid to work his way up and get a hand or elbow over the top his hands just slide back down the bars. There’s fire shooting across his chest and up into his neck from his right shoulder and he can feel pins and needles start to spread along the outside of his arm all the way down to his elbow.

 

“Cormoran.” It’s the only word that Robin’s mouth seems capable of but she wants to say so much more. _Hang on. Please. Someone will come, just hold on. Please._

 

“Robin.” He’s looking up at her now, eyes wide and clear and catching the light overhead. She can see the tremors running through his arms and knows his struggles to climb up have stopped, every ounce of strength being spent on simply holding on now.

 

“I love you.” He shouts it up to her and it seems to echo along the metal bars and bounce off the walls.

 

“Shut up!” Robin shouts back, feeling more of his wool coat slip through her grasp. She screams for Shanker again and prays to god that someone will hear her.

 

“What, you don’t love me?” He says it with a smirk but he’s doing a terrible job of hiding the fear in his eyes and a sob catches in Robin’s throat.

 

“Of course I...” The sobs come fast now and the rest of the sentence catches in her throat.

 

“Please don’t fall. Cormoran, please. Please, please, please.” The words all run into one and she can feel the tears running down her nose.

 

“Don’t cry.” He says as he shifts his weight again and grunts and then hisses when his shoulder pulls. He can’t stop watching her now, and yet her tears make him want to look away. A crying, broken Robin is not the last thing he wants to see.

 

“You can’t... cry all over me... add more... weight.” Robin huffs a laugh and looks away, screaming once more for Shanker. Strike echoes her shout but his is much quieter, his shoulders are bunched up alongside his neck and all the pressure across his chest from holding on is stopping him from taking a deep enough lungful of air to shout.

 

Robin shifts her head slightly so she’s closer to his hands and she places a gentle and warm kiss on his knuckles. It makes Strike shut his eyes because he remembers her lips on his before they got out of their car to meet Shanker. A spike of pain shoots through his stomach when he realises he might never kiss her again.

 

“I love you.” She whispers against his fingers.

 

“Robin, look at me. This has been... the greatest... part of my life.” He replies, each word said with such force and conviction that she can’t take it as anything other than the start of a goodbye speech that she won’t allow him deliver.

 

“What, hanging from a railing?” She huffs and kisses his fingers once more. She looks back down at him in time to see his eyes widen in panic and she can feel the tremor run up his right arm and into his hand as it slips open, just his fingers clawing at the bar now. She wraps her hand around his wrist and pulls it back towards the bar with all the strength she can muster. His hand encircles the bar again but his grip is weaker and his eyes are shut now and she can see a trickle of blood from where he’s biting through his bottom lip. An image flashes through her mind, of him lying sprawled on the ground below, still and staring up at her as blood pools around him.

 

“Please Cormoran, please don’t fall. I love you, please, please, please.”

 

“BUNSEN!” Robin’s eyes snap open to see Shanker bounding up the stairs below them.

 

“SHANKER! Hurry!” Robin looks down at Strike but his face is grey with pain now and covered in a sheen of sweat and he’s looking below him, as if he’s not sure where Shanker will appear from.

 

Shanker is beside her in seconds and shoves his two arms through the railings to grab a hold of Strike’s left bicep and shirt collar.

 

“Jesus Christ.” He mutters in a strained voice as he tries to pull Strike’s arm up and through the railings.

 

“Strike! Bloody hell.” Wardle’s voice echoes up the stairwell and Robin feels a rush of lightness as she spots him darting up the stairs, two at a time, a few floors below.

 

“Shanker!” Strike’s panicked voice pulls Robin’s attention back to him and she sees nothing but desperation in his eyes as he looks to Shanker.

 

“My right arm is gonna give out.” Just as the last word leaves his mouth Robin’s stomach plummets as two things happen. Strike’s right hand slips away from her grasp, away from the railing, and Shanker heaves with all his might, pulling Strike’s left arm through the railing. Strike gets his elbow through and quickly bends his arm to find purchase, his fingers now wrapped around a bar closer to Robin. He’s effectively hanging by his forearm, pressed against a row of metal bars, but he’s closer now and Robin reaches out to place a hand on the back of his neck as he looks at her.

 

“Wardle’s coming, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He nods slightly, his brow furrowed in pain, and she glances down to see his right arm hanging uselessly by his side. Strike can feel every inch of pain that throbs along his collarbone and across his shoulder and down his arm. The feeling of pins and needles crawls along his forearm but stops at his fingers which are now numb. He can feel tremors running along his left arm but his grip is strong.

 

Suddenly Wardle is there beside Robin and just as quickly he’s climbing over the railing and reaching out towards Strike’s dangling arm.

 

“Give me your hand.”

 

“Can’t.” Robin can hear the pain and desperation in just that one word.

 

“I have to pull you up by your right arm so that when I get you close enough you can grab the top of the bar with your left, alright?” Wardle says, spitting the words like he wouldn’t take no as an option.

 

“I can’t... move it.” Robin can hear the exhaustion in his voice and watches nervously as Shanker rearranges his grip on Strike’s left elbow.

 

“Well there’s no other option because I’m not adding your splattered head to my workload.” Robin feels her stomach flip and in her mind sees images of Lula Landry lying dead in the snow morphing into Strike’s lifeless eyes staring up at her.

 

Strike’s grunt brings her back to reality and she catches sight of a single tear leaking out of his eye as his arm barely moves from his side. Wardle leans over, his hand tightly gripping the top of the railing and his foot hooked around a bar for extra assurance and after what felt like a marathon Strike finally manages to raise his arm to within Wardle’s grasp. A dull scream is ripped from Strike’s throat when Wardle pulls his arm up and steadies his grip on it.

 

“C’mon Bunsen, that’s it.” Shanker says, eyeing Robin sideways with a worried glance.

 

Wardle pauses, Strike’s arm held close to his body with one hand, and quickly throws one leg back over the railing and hooks his foot around a bar again. He closes both hands tightly around Strike’s arm and looks down at him. Strike’s eyes are shut, blood is now a steady stream at his bottom lip and his face is grey.

 

“Hey, gooner, look at me.” Wardle says. Robin watches breathlessly as Strike’s head slowly raises.

 

“I’m gonna pull like hell and it’s going to hurt like hell but all you have to do is get your left hand over the top of the railing and we’ll do the rest, okay?” Strike’s head shakes slightly and Robin’s eyes dart from Wardle’s slim frame to Strike’s bulky one. Wardle’s gaze turns to Shanker and Robin.

 

“Once I start pulling, you two reach over and help him, alright?” And with that Strike’s scream fills the void as Wardle pulls his right arm higher and higher. For a split second the pain is all consuming and Strike’s left hand doesn’t budge, but then Shanker scrambles to grasp Cormoran’s flailing left hand as it seeks the top of the railing, his body now entirely hanging by Wardle’s grip on his right arm. Robin’s heart jackknifes in her chest as Strike’s left hand finds the railing and suddenly, by arms, legs and belt buckles, Shanker and Wardle are pulling him over the railing. They all collapse on the floor in a tangle of limbs and Robin is pinned beneath an almost hyperventilating Cormoran who has come to rest on his stomach with his head on her chest and his useless right arm lying across her body.

 

Wardle is there then, face red from the exertion, and he pulls Strike away from her to lie him flat on his back. Robin watches as Wardle straightens Strike’s right arm and positions it close to his body. Strike is breathing hard and his eyes when they open are glazed but, _he’s alive. He didn’t fall, it’s over, he’s alive, he’s safe._ Wardle asks if he’s hurt anywhere else and upon receiving a grunt from Strike he sits back against the railing where Shanker thumps him on the back in a gesture of thanks and puts his own head against the railing, letting out a deep breath.

 

The paramedics arrive 15 minutes later to find Robin lying beside him with one leg thrown over his, placing gentle kisses on his forehead and running fingers through his hair. Wardle and Shanker are still sitting against the railing watching them, Shanker with his hand still on Wardle’s shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Hours later Wardle stood by the bottom of Strike’s hospital bed and explained to Robin that he had been following them, knowing in his gut that Strike was keeping something from him. With a glance toward a sleeping Strike he left, promising to be back to talk about police cooperation and the case the first chance he gets.

 

Hours after that Shanker reappeared, sneaking in through the light blue curtain around Strike’s A&E cubicle as if he was smuggling something. He pulled out a Snickers and handed it to Robin before throwing a Twix on top of the blanket covering Strike’s legs. The movement didn’t wake Cormoran, who hadn’t been particularly coherent since reaching solid ground due to the pain and then the gas the paramedics gave him and the morphine now circling his veins.

 

“Bunsen gonna be alright then?” Shanker said as he sat on the space left vacant by Strike’s prosthetic.

 

“He tore and ripped and pulled pretty much everything there is to in his shoulder. They’re going to take him for surgery in the morning some time but he should be okay.” Robin had listened to everything the consultant had said and asked every question she could think of before being ushered into a chair by a nurse who brought her a sugary tea. She had sat with one hand wrapped in Strike’s and one hand wrapped around the hot mug until she suddenly noticed the tea had gone cold after what she thought to only be seconds, in that strange way that hospitals have of warping time.

 

She followed Shanker’s gaze to Strike. He was lying flat on his back with ice packs around his arm and shoulder and a heating pad stuck to his neck where he’d thankfully just strained it. There was an IV in his left hand near the side of his wrist being used for pain relief and his cheeks were flushed, a not uncommon side effect of morphine the nurse had assured Robin, and his hair was in more disarray than usual.

 

“I’ll make myself scarce so.” Shanker said, with a warm smile to Robin.

 

“Afraid of running into Wardle again?”

 

“I’m glad he stopped Bunsen from becoming humpty dumpty but he’s a copper Robin, a man has his limits.” Shanker said, his gold tooth glistening in the light. Robin smiled to herself for the first time that night and felt grateful to have Shanker as a friend.

 

With a rough pat of Strike’s knee he left, pulling the curtain closed as he went. The nurse had told Robin that they would be moving Strike up to a ward some time that night but she wasn’t sure when. Robin could stay with him while he was in A&E but once he was moved upstairs she’d have to leave as visiting hours were long over. Just as she was debating how cruel it would be to wake him up she noticed his legs twitch and looked up to see his eyes crack open slightly.

 

“Hey! How do you feel?”

 

“Like I fell off a cliff.” Strike said, his voice hoarse. He smiled tightly and turned his head gingerly to look at his arm.

 

“Almost.” Robin said, thinking back to how those terrifying moments had seemed to stretch for an eternity. She moved closer to smooth his hair back from his forehead. Strike spotted the Twix by his leg but Robin took his empty hand before he had time to make a grab for it.

 

“Bad news.” She said and Strike’s eyebrows rose.

 

“You’re having shoulder surgery tomorrow morning.”

 

“Fuuuck.”

 

“Which also means no food or drink until then.”

 

“I haven’t eaten since lunch!” Strike said with as much outrage as his morphine soaked mind and tired body could muster.

 

“Sorry.” She replied as she stroked the inside of his good arm and pulled an ice pack back beside his right arm from where it had slid off. There was a plastic sheet under his upper body to catch the drops of water from the melting ice packs. Strike looked down at himself and noticed for the first time that he seemed to only be wearing the left side of his shirt.

 

“Did they cut my shirt off?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“It has bloody buttons, who cuts a shirt off with buttons?” Robin laughed at his anger and opened the Snickers Shanker had brought her. Strike’s eyes darted to the bar the second he heard the rustle of the wrapper. Robin paused mid-bite.

 

“I’m starving.” She said sheepishly.

 

Strike just stared at her, looking like a disgruntled child, and then shut his eyes. Robin quickly finished her bar and then slipped the Twix into her handbag.

 

“Cruel punishment.” He said quietly without opening his eyes.

 

“What if I have all the Snickers and Twixes you could ever want when you get out of surgery?” Robin whispered as she put her arms on the bed beside him and rested her head.

 

“Mmm.” Strike said with a huff.

 

“And a cottage pie waiting at home.”

 

“Mmm.” This time he opened his eyes.

 

“And as your business partner I have to insist that you stay in bed for a while. To recover.” Robin said with a glint in her eye.

 

Strike brushed away the strands of hair that had fallen in front of her face and rested his hand on her head where it lay beside him on the bed. He rubbed circles along her cheekbone and smiled sleepily at her.

 

“Love you.” He said.

 

“I love you too, dodgy shoulder and all.”

 

“Dodgy shoulder and dodgy leg and all?”

 

“Dodgy everything and all.” She said, reaching up to brush a thumb against his lips.

 

“Why don’t you get some sleep, I’ll stay here until they move you upstairs.”

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow? Before the surgery?”

 

“I’ll be here first thing.”

 

And with that Strike drifted off to sleep with his fingers curled in Robin’s hair and her hand on his thigh.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) 
> 
> This one is a bit different for me because I wanted to play around with tenses and I thought that having the main event in the present tense might up the tension a little bit. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it :)


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